by David Dickie
Chapter Eleven
It was well before sunrise the next morning when Grim started knocking on the others’ doors. Lug was first out, followed by Rotan, who was rubbing sleep out of his eyes. Fayyaad and Alan were next.
Rotan glanced at a window, which was dark, and turned back to Grim with a frown. “I thought we said morning, and if the sun’s not up, it’s still evening in my book.”
Grim smiled. “Small change in plans. I’d say gather your stuff, but none of us have any, so follow me… quietly.”
Fayyaad sniffed. “What are we doing?”
Grim said, “Trust me. You’ll know soon enough, but we have to move.”
Fayyaad nodded sagely. “Right. I trust you more than I trust my own mother, and if there’s one person I trust… oh, wait a minute, I sold my mom to Stangri raiders for drinking money, and I don’t trust anyone. What are we doing?”
“I’ll tell you as we go,” said Grim, turning and heading down the stairs. He glanced back. Fayyaad looked like he was going to argue, but Grim gave him a hard look. With a sigh, Fayyaad joined the rest following Grim.
The stairs ended in a small hallway. To the right there was an opening into the kitchen area and a door to a back alley. Light was spilling from the doorway, and the faint clatter of metal and the smell of baking bread told everyone that preparations for breakfast were underway. To the left the corridor opened into the common room. Grim held up a finger and went left. At the end of the hallway, he met someone in gray robes with a cowl that hid their features. The cowled man had clearly been waiting for Grim. Grim handed the man a small sack that clinked with the sound a bag of coins when the other man took it. The man turned and went into the common room, while Grim returned to the group. He slid past them, peered around the corner of the doorway to the kitchen, then waved everyone down the corridor to the door to the alleyway.
There was a single glow lamp on the back of a building, giving just enough light to make everything look dark and menacing. They dodged through a couple of connecting alleyways and made it out to a side street, which was better lit.
“Ok, not moving until you tell us what’s going on,” said Fayyaad, planting his feet.
“It would be kind of you to elucidate us,” said Alan.
“Plus,” added Rotan, a hint of suspicion in his voice, “where’d that money come from? I didn’t give it to you.”
Grim turned around and held up Rotan’s coin purse. Rotan gasped and reached for his pocket, then gasped again with he found it empty.
“Not to worry,” said Grim, “I didn’t use much.” He tossed the purse to Rotan, who caught it out of the air. “I had to use a small amount of your funds to get some of the locals to point me in the right direction. The bag of money I gave away was money I earned for information. Specifically, information about a Kethem Holder with a well-trimmed beard who looks remarkably like you, traveling with four companions, whose description were a little vaguer but would be a good match for the rest of us. There appears to be a reward for your capture, my Lord.”
Rotan blanched. “The man in the gray cloak?”
Grim shook his head. “No, that was someone I hired, along with four others, to dress like they were hiding their features, and then to walk from the Inn to the docks this morning just after sunrise. Had to give up pretty much everything I made selling the information that you were going to be taking a merchant ship in the morning, but they will look enough like us until they ditch the robes to confuse things until we are long gone.”
“Subterfuge,” said Alan.
“Indeed,” answered Grim.
“Ohulhug,” said Rotan.
“I doubt it,” said Grim. “Maybe the ohulhug have an organization to do their bidding in a Pranan City-State, but the scars from the human-ohulhug wars run deep here. It’s more likely Kethem Naval Intelligence.” Grim held up his hand as Rotan started to speak. “I know, I know. Same thing from your standpoint, given you think there’s an ohulhug spy in the military, which I find unlikely as well but is marginally more plausible. Regardless, it seemed best to skip the Searunner. We weren’t particularly cautious at that inn. I’m guessing any number of people have passed on the same information.”
“We have to find a different ship,” said Rotan.
“Maybe not,” said Grim. “It’s the obvious way out of the city. When the net comes up empty, they’re just going to cast it out again. We can be more careful, but I suspect any visit to the docks is not going to end well for us.”
“Then what?” said Rotan. “We hide in the city until the sun grows cold and dark?”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” said Grim. “There is an alternate way out of the city. It will take a little longer to get to Tendut, but I think we can do it. There are wagon caravans to a number of port cities, hauling cargo that’s not worth enough to put on a ship. They don’t take passengers, but they will hire on guards. People who are willing to hire on cheap tend to be accepted without questions. Anything someone could make by turning them in is less than they make in saved wages.”
Rotan looked at Grim incredulously. “Are you serious? Me, a caravan guard? Like a common foot soldier?”
Grim pursed his lips. “No, I’d say caravan guard is a few notches lower than a foot soldier. But all to the better, because no one is going to think you’d sink to those depths,” Grim said, trying not to grin.
“Absolutely not,” sputtered Rotan.
“Then, my lord, I am more than happy to defer to your plan, which would be?”
Rotan stopped talking. Grim waited a few moments. Rotan finally sighed. “Fine. Fine. Can’t be any worse than hiking through woods for five days using leaves to wipe my ass.”
Grim laughed. “Follow me then.” He’d asked around the night before. Most merchants left from Oster’s Common, which despite the name wasn’t a Common at all. It was a collection of warehouses, stables, blacksmiths, wagon-makers and the other odds and ends of the supply chain that were needed to keep goods flowing between the City-States if they were going overland. It was on the other side of Struford, outside the walls of the city proper, and it was a good hour-and-a-half hike. In Kethem, they could have paid for a telemage, or at least hired a carriage, but Struford reserved such things for the nobility.
By the time they reached Ostler’s common, the sun had been up for a half hour, and the streets and paths had gotten exponentially busier. “We could at least have had breakfast before we left,” grumbled Rotan.
“And left a long line of people who could point in the direction we went as soon as someone realized we weren’t sticking to the original plan,” said Grim. He looked around with a hand over his eyes to shade them from the rising sun. “There,” he pointed, “that pole with a flag on top, a flag embroidered with a sword. Looks like someone advertising for guards to me.”
They wound their way through a chaotic mass of horses, people, and wagons. The pole was attached to a garishly colored wagon in the center of a cluster of other wagons that were being hitched to horses. Sitting at a table in front of the wagon was a thin man with a white beard and a bald head in clothes that were a riot of colors, most of which clashed. There were two others standing behind him, one armed with a sword. Both were younger than the man with the beard, but they looked like they had been doing whatever it was they did for a long time.
Alan looked like he was going to step forward. Rotan was already moving. Grim stopped him and held up a hand to Alan. “Alan, Rotan, let me handle this.” He approached the man with the beard, who squinted at him. “And who’re you being?”
”Bran Tarafelle,” said Grim. “Looking for work. You hiring guards?”
The man stuck his thumb up at the sign. “Sez I am, dozen it?” He looked past Grim at the other four and shook his head. “One or two, danggerit. Not a herd.”
“Could get the herd at a good price,” said Grim. “Just looking for a gig while some things cool down, you know what I mean.”
The man sat bac
k. “Pedron Malan,” he said. “Watter we talkin’ here?”
Grim pointed back at Alan. “Battle mage.” Grim wasn’t really sure of that, but the firebolt Alan had cast while they were adrift had been powerful. It was close enough. He pointed at Lug. “Master swordsman.” Grim was sure of that, just from watching the way Lug moved and handled his sword. “The rest of us, good with weapons. That one’s a cook,” he said, pointing at Rotan. Rotan’s teeth clenched, but he didn’t say anything.
“Boudro,” called Pedron, “doin’ the swordsman.”
The man with the sword moved out from behind Pedron, walked up to Lug and bowed. He drew his sword. Lug did the same. “Just forms,” said the man. He took a stance that Grim vaguely recognized, with his sword in front of him at an angle to the ground and his other hand slightly behind him. There were hundreds of formal stances. Grim had trained enough to know some of the basic ones, but he’d focused more on how to get the pointed end in the other guy.
Lug followed Boudro’s lead, taking the same stance. There was nothing different that Grim could see, but Boudro raised an eyebrow and said, “Vaughn’s variation. You normally fight with sword and short sword?” Lug nodded. Boudro grunted. “Unusual.” Then he took a step forward, the sword coming down and thrusting ahead, twisted it sideways and did a short slash to the right, a longer slash to the left, and returned to his original stance. Instead of copying him, Lug angled his sword sideways, chopped down, swung it up at an angle, then slashed sideways, ending in that position. “Serpent’s tongue. Nice move. Don’t see that too often,” said Boudro. He sheathed his sword, bowed, and looked back at Pedron. “Solid,” he said.
“Kali,” called Pedron. The man with no weapons took a few steps forward. “The enchanter.”
Kali looked at Alan. “Your best offensive spell. Just prep, you don’t have to cast it.”
Alan nodded. He held his hands out in front of him, eyes focused, and said a few words that to Grim’s ears were nonsense, but that he recognized as the cantrip Alan had used when they were adrift on the rowboat to cast his firebolt. Alan stood for a moment, then relaxed. Kali grunted. Pedron looked at him and said, “Well?”
“He’s good,” said Kali.
“Hows good?” asked Pedron.
“Can’t tell you. Better than me. Much better. I can tell you down, but up, all I can say is up.”
“Ifin he’s bettern you, that’s gooden uff,” said Pedron. He looked back at Grim. “Forty silver apiece for the two. A hundred for theer lota you.” This wasn’t Kethem, where a master swordsman and a battle mage would pull down two hundred silver a day, but that still had to be less than half the going rate. Pedron had clearly picked up on the group’s desperation to slide out of town quickly. Grim was fine with that. So fine, in fact, that he just nodded.
Pedron smiled. “Not needin no guards in sight of the city and a bit past that. Sayall you startin the easy way, covered wagon stead of walkin?”
“Easy works for us,” said Grim.
Pedron nodded again. “Headin for Eleyford, leavin in an hour. You good to go?” Grim nodded. “Yawl be in one shift. Don’t want no trouble, now, or later when I return, so let’s keep from mixing too much with people that’s mighten remember something they oughtenter.” Grim nodded again. “Gooden. Boudro, pull the marker.” Boudro went to the pole with the sword flag and started to pull it down. “Kali, showen em to one of the supply wagons, west sector, waze from the crowds.”
Kali nodded to them. “Follow me,” he said.
Chapter Twelve
They were on the road (if you could count a dirt track running through the forest as a road) for three days, with the most significant incident being a wagon getting stuck in a muddy rut before everyone started to relax. Along with that, Pedron’s advice or not, they became familiar with the rest of the wagon train’s crew, from the other guards, to the drivers, to the honest-to-god troll cook. Pedron, overhearing some of their comments, said, “Damndenest, thing, but bangerme if trolls don’t make the best darnden cooks, gooden eats and not too particular about the ingredients.” After which there were a lot fewer compliments and lot more poking at the lumps of tasty but unidentifiable objects in the evening stew.
Pedron had looked at Rotan, and Rotan had looked at the twelve-foot-tall troll and said, “Grim was joking about the cooking. I’m good with a sword.” Pedron had raised an eyebrow, but let it pass and put Rotan in the guard rotation.
Then there was the mysterious passenger in the long, silver robes, hood up and hiding any features. Tall but thin… or perhaps “lithe” was a better description. The passenger ate separately from everyone else and, during the day, stayed in one of the wagons. Belted around the robes was a scabbard and sword, the hilt an elaborate rendition of a ferfal, a fairly exotic animal from the plains of Tawhiem. The pommel was shaped like the ferfal’s horny shoulder plates. The sheath looked expensive, black leather with silver embellishments, with a ruby embedded on one side and a sapphire on the other. The belt it was attached to had several gems as well. Grim didn’t need to examine it closely to know it was an Elvish weapon and that the gems were likely charged with spells.
Grim wandered over the next evening with his stew to where the cowled figure was sitting with his most winning smile. “Mind if I join you?” he asked.
The stranger replied in a feminine, vaguely sinister voice, “Yes.” Grim had a sense of aquiline features and brilliant blue eyes. He sat down anyway.
“My name’s Grim,” he said, poking at his stew. What could something grape-shaped but with red and white stripes be, anyway?
“And I am somebody you do not know.”
Grim shrugged. “Going to be on the road together for a while, and I don’t what to constantly call you the gray-cowled stranger. I promise I will not use your name in an epic poem without your consent.”
He sensed rather than saw her hesitate, then curiosity got the better of her. “You are a poet?”
Grim shook his head no. “See? You’re completely safe.”
She laughed. “Well, I am happy that I have been spared such a fate.” She hesitated, then said, “My name is Ziwa.”
“Ziwa” Grim replied back. “Glad to meet you, Ziwa.” He held out his hand. Her hand wrapped around the hilt of the sword for a moment, not in a threatening fashion, but in a familiar one, almost like it was instinctual. Then she reached out with her other hand to return his handshake, long, delicate, strong fingers curving around his.
“Vanya lome nae llie,” Grim said quietly.
She swept back the hood, revealing long blond hair, high cheekbones, clear blue eyes, a face delicate and strong at the same time, and without question the most beautiful woman Grim had ever seen, human or otherwise. “Vanya lome,” she replied in Elvish. “You need work on your pronunciation,” she added in common. Grim had only been studying Elvish for the past couple of months. Her other hand was still around the sword hilt. Then she let go, and he felt the moment pass. She put her hood back up. “Fair evenings to you, Grim,” she said, then stood up and took her bowl of stew with her into her wagon.
Grim walked back to the group, where Fayyaad waited expectantly. “Well?” said Fayyaad.
“An elf,” said Grim.
“Thought so,” said Fayyaad.
“Wasn’t too hard to guess,” said Grim. “She knew the Elvish greeting I threw at her. Didn’t even need to see her face after that.”
Alan looked startled. “You speak Elvish? I didn’t know that. You picked it up after Tawhiem?”
Grim paused. He tried to remember what they had talked about while they were on the Venture, on the road. Had he mentioned the expedition to Tawhiem? He couldn’t remember. Even if he had, there was no reason Alan would suggest it had anything to do with learning Elvish unless he knew things he couldn’t possibly know about Grim’s past, about that trip.
Grim forced a smile. “Yes. Seemed like a good idea at the time.” Grim shook his head and changed the subject. “Never heard o
f an elf traveling alone before. They always have their human guards, the salsenahain, with them. She says her name is Ziwa, kind of odd for an elf. Normally it’s a mouth full of syllables.”
Alan looked startled. “Ziwa?” he repeated.
Grim raised an eyebrow and said, “You know something?”
Alan frowned. “Not much. Something from the archives in Bythe. An incident, where a young Elvish girl killed a senior Elvish diplomat, Gensanthien, in some sort of freak accident. She wasn’t punished, but she was banished from contact with other elves.” He looked contemplative for a moment—not unusual for Alan—and then added, “That’s all I know,” which was unusual for Alan.
Grim looked at the wagon Ziwa had retreated to. It was one of the solid ones, wooden sides in dull earth tones, with small windows on either side, too high up for anyone outside the wagon to look in without a ladder. A passenger wagon, very unusual. If you could afford that, you could afford passage on a ship, which would be faster and more comfortable. “Odd, but I can’t believe it has anything to do with us.” But he was curious and for the next few nights, Grim continued to attempt to build a rapport with Ziwa, those nights where he wasn’t on an evening guard shift or too beat from the day’s marching.
